Watermelon Sugar Cookies

A selection of watermelon-shaped cookies with pink icing and seed details arranged on parchment paper.

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Delicious, cute, and festive these watermelon sugar cookies are perfect for summer! Made from scratch with a buttery, sugar cookie base and decorated with pink and green, these cookies will be the hit of the dessert table!

Prep Time20

Cook Time10

Resting Time1

Total Time1 40

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: cookies

Calories: 198kcal

Author: Laura

Ingredients

For the cookies

1 c sugar
1 c unsalted butter softened
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 tsp salt if using salted butter, you can leave this out
3 c flour

For the icing

4 c sugar divided
2 T meringue powder
2 t vanilla divided*
½-¾ c water divided
2 T corn syrup

To decorate

Pink and green food coloring
Mini Chocolate Chips

Instructions

preheat the oven to 350 degrees
line your baking sheets with parchment and set aside
in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the sugar and butter, cream until smooth
add in the vanilla and egg, mix well
stir the salt and flour together and then mix it into the butter mixture
mix until the dough balls together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl
Using a lightly floured work surface, roll the cookie dough out until it’s about ½ - ⅝ of an inch thick
cut out 18 3-inch circles, you can gather and reroll the dough once to make enough circles
cut each circle in half
carefully transfer your cut out shapes to the parchment lined baking sheets
bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes. Watch closely - over baking will cause hard cookies. Cookies are done when the edges are set and the center is no longer shiny.
Allow to cool before decorating.
For the soft-bite icing - In the bowl of the stand mixer, combine the 2 c powdered sugar, meringue powder and 1 t vanilla. Using the paddle attachment, mix on low speed for about 30 seconds
add in 3 teaspoons worth of water as the mixer is going. Allow to mix until combined. Increase the speed to medium for another 2-3 minutes. The icing will be very stiff. Transfer to another bowl and cover with a damp paper towel.
using the same mixing bowl, combine the other 2 cups of powdered sugar, corn syrup, 2 tablespoons of water and the other teaspoon of vanilla. Mix on low speed until combined with the whisk attachment
combine the two icing mixtures into one bowl and whisk until smooth
Use this method to test for proper thickness of the soft bite royal icing: Using a spatula, scoop a bit of icing up and allow it to drop back into the bowl. if it incorporates back into the icing by the count of 15 it is just about perfect
if your mixture is very thick—add in a little additional water if needed to thin the mixture.
if your mixture seems to thin—a too thin of icing will need a bit more powdered sugar and too thick of icing will need another dash of water
transfer the icing to three separate bowls and tint one bowl pink, one green and keep one white.
transfer the icing to piping bags
when ready to decorate, snip a tiny bit off the tip of the piping bag. You can always cut the hole bigger if the icing is not flowing as quickly as you’d like.
start with the green icing and pipe a thick border around the curved side of the cookies.
follow up with a thin line of white icing.
then fill the remaining semi-circle pink. Immediately after piping the pink, use a toothpick to help settle the icing, if needed. Set the individual mini chocolate chips before the icing begins to crust.
Cookies will need about 24 hours for the icing to set before they can be stacked. During this time, they can be on a cooling rack or baking sheet at room temp. Once decorated and set, they need to be stored in an airtight container for up to a week or frozen for 3 months.

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